A New Office Tower Isn't Necessarily a Win: Here's What to Ask

Here are some urban design suggestions for planning commissions, neighborhood associations, and elected officials who need to comment or vote on an application for an office tower:

1. Especially if the exterior façade is rather plain, and it's your basic rectangle with no articulation, see that the landscaping, public art, or entry feature provides a contrasting, and hopefully curvilinear shape.

When we say there's no articulation, we mean there are no protrusions on the building, no exterior niches, no receding and advancing of the basic plane of the façade. The front of the building is rectangular, and the sides and rear are three more rectangles. You get the picture.

So if this is the case, the design will benefit by being broken up.



Yes, the world might offer a few examples of stark rectangular building planes on a rectangular foundation that are spectacular and artful due to their materials, coloring, siting, or such.

But trust us, eventually most communities are dismayed because it's tough to do enough beautification at the street level to offset the lack of interest inherent in these cubes or elongated cubes.

2. Really watch out for overpowering nearby buildings. In general, having the mass of a building similar to the mass of the buildings on other corners of an intersection makes each building tend to look appropriate. Think of mass as cubic area.

Just to complicate things, more mass can be effective if the setback from the street is further. In general in urban design, similar setbacks from the street form the basis of a good design.

However, if a large vacant tract of land is across the street from a building or series of buildings that are set back only a few feet from the street, the building on the vacant lot can be larger in proportion to the opposing buildings if the new building is set back further from the street.

If you're building in a highly urban environment, though, there's not much that's more disgusting than seeing beautiful brick three or four story existing buildings on three corners, only to have someone propose a 15-story glass curtain wall tower on the fourth corner.

Unfortunately, it might be legal if your town or city doesn't have tight enough architectural, historic district, or zoning controls, but it's sure to be regarded as a mistake in future years. And if the 15-story building later becomes vacant or doesn't rent up as projected when it’s new, it could become a white elephant.

3. Try to preserve a walkable environment for the rest of the neighborhood as much as possible.

When the tower in a park look presents neighborhood design issues by disrupting pedestrian safety, it's not beautification as much as connectivity that's needed.

If there's to be a large office tower in the middle of a block, at least make sure that wide sidewalks are required. The sidewalks need to be wide not only for the sake of pedestrians, but also for visual proportion with the building.

Driveways into the parking area need to be carefully considered. Minimize the number of drives as much as practical, but even more importantly, minimize their width. Do what you can to slow traffic as it enters and exits from the parking lot.

4. If the office tower falls in the middle of what otherwise is a shopping district, first of all, shame on you for not enacting better controls.

If this is where you find yourself and you have nothing that will prevent the property owner from proposing the office tower, at least address design issues by encouraging a streetscape that reflects interest in the public space near the roadway.

This could consist of gardens and benches near the street (and hopefully the sidewalk). Or you could have a series of public sculptures.

If the tower will be close enough to the street that window contents would be visible, set up the first floor as if it were a storefront. Granted, you won't have merchandise to show, but display some interesting teapot, pipe, cigar box, and/or antique typewriter collections.

Of course, the further the windows are from the street, the larger and more striking the individual items must be to command attention.

5. The tower in a park look is fairly tired and difficult to pull off to good effect. Try grouping the towers and placing them at angles to one another.

Insist that the architect make the shapes slightly different, and definitely the heights should vary slightly. If the colors can vary slightly, that's helpful, as is ornamentation distinctive to each building but harmonious with the whole.

In suburban environments, tall towers often look odd too close to the street, so the building height should be limited when street width is fairly narrow. Of course, in a highly urban environment, build it up, build it dense, and build it to the front property line.

We've only scratched the surface. But hopefully we've made you think that you need to be serious about questioning the design of any office tower that is proposed for your town or city.

Especially if the proposal represents a significant investment for your community, it's difficult to second-guess an architect who is locally or nationally well-known.

But it's important to ask the questions. Because an awkward, boring, or stark office tower sure kills a lively environment faster than about any other single mistake you can make.

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